


Fractals

by orphan_account



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Blood, Injury, M/M, Scars, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 09:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5921134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Harrison Wells had always been first and foremost a scientist, but there were some things in this world even he couldn’t explain. The scars were one of those things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fractals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DYlogger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DYlogger/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Фракталы](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11712231) by [DarkMoska](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkMoska/pseuds/DarkMoska)



> Because Dy and I agree there's not enough Harrick floating around.

Dr. Harrison Wells had always been first and foremost a scientist, but there were some things in this world even he couldn’t explain. The scars were one of those things.

 

His mother had told him that his first word was “why?” As Harrison grew, she used to tease him that he had never stopped asking questions since: why the sky was blue (lower wavelengths of light scattered by atmospheric particles), why he needed glasses (improper curvature of the cornea leading to an inefficient focal length of the light entering the retina), why his mother was dying (cancer). 

 

Even he couldn’t remember all the questions he’d asked her, but there was one that had always stuck in his mind. When Harrison was seven, he’d gone to brush his teeth, only to see a faint tan line above his eyebrow that hadn’t been there before. 

 

“Mom, what happened to my face?” He asked, pointing to the mark on his head. His mother’s face softened, and she brushed a dark curl of hair away from Harrison’s forehead. “I didn’t cut myself, I would’ve remembered.”

 

“No, you didn’t,” she replied, smiling. “But somebody else cut themselves.”

 

“What does that have to do with me?” Harrison protested.

 

His mother took a deep breath. “You know how Dad dropped a glass and it cut his leg?” Harrison nodded, remembering asking the doctor if he could watch the cut being stitched. His mother rolled up her trouser leg, revealing a small pink scar in the same location as his father’s was.

 

“When two people share a bond, something really special, if one of them gets hurt, both of them get the scar,” she explained. “Your dad and I were meant to be together, and this is how we know.”

 

“So the person who got hurt,” interpolated Harrison, his fingers running over the line on his forehead, “...I’m gonna marry them?”

 

His mother laughed, ruffling his hair affectionately. “No, not necessarily. Just because you share this bond, doesn’t mean you’ll fall in love.” A faraway look entered her eyes. “But most people do.”

 

Harrison snorted at that. “I’d rather clone myself,” he said imperiously. “That way, I can do more experiments.” His mother had laughed again at that, and even now, all these years later, Harrison could still remember the warmth that laugh had filled him with.

 

Unconsciously, his fingers flitted to the small mark on his forehead, now somewhat faded. Over the years, more scars had appeared as his supposed soulmate endured the wear and tear of the universe, but there had never been anything that Harrison could identify them by. Tess used to tease him that if his soulmate kept it up, there wouldn’t be anything left of them. Harrison had scoffed, but secretly he wondered if she was right. They might not have shared scars, but he and Tess still shared a deep bond. It had genuinely surprised him when the mark from her chemoport hadn’t appeared on his shoulder. Even after she died, the scars kept appearing. 

 

When the particle accelerator exploded, it threw Harrison into a window, embedding shards of glass in his back. By the time an ambulance made it to S.T.A.R. Labs, he had staggered outside, gaping at the destruction he had wrought, heedless of the blood coursing down his back. A paramedic forced him to lie face-down on a stretcher, cutting off his dress shirt. As she pulled the fabric aside, she whistled in amazement. 

 

“Holy cow, that’s quite the soulmate you’ve got there,” she said, swabbing Harrison’s back.

 

“What is it?” Harrison asked, straining to see. In the reflection of the metal cabinets, he caught a glimpse of his own back. Underneath the blood was a bright red zigzag down his spine, with several fractals branching off it. It looked like-

 

“Lightning,” he gasped, struggling to his feet. “They were struck by lightning.”

 

“Hey, whoa,” the paramedic said, pressing Harrison back onto the stretcher. “You’ve got some nasty scrapes there, we need to get you cleaned up before you can run off.”

 

“Take me to the hospital,” Harrison ordered, eyes blazing. “There’s somebody I need to see.”

 

The paramedic’s fingers traced a small scar on her neck, before nodding. “Okay, but you’ve gotta let me patch you up.” She pointed at the stretcher. Obediently, Harrison lay back down, his mind racing. 

 

The ride to the hospital was mercifully short, but Harrison was completely on edge. At one point he moved to the corner of the ambulance so that a badly burned young woman could be carted in, trying not to breathe as the smell of her burning flesh permeated the back. Before the ambulance could even grind to a halt, he was out the door, running into the reception area of the hospital. 

 

“Are there any patients here who were struck by lightning?” He asked forcibly, slamming his hands onto the counter. 

 

“I’m sorry, that’s privileged information,” the receptionist replied, visibly startled by Harrison’s outburst. “We’re really busy, but if you like-” But Harrison was already gone, tearing down the corridors. 

 

_ Think, think! _ He urged himself, trying to override his rising panic.  _ They’ll be in shock, losing heat fast - foil blanket! _ Harrison scanned the rooms as he ran down the hall, but none had the distinctive metal blanket that he knew his soulmate would be wrapped in. He span in a circle, hands gripping his hair tightly, before taking the stairs up two at a time.

 

And then, he saw it, the flash of silver that he knew would change his life.

 

He barged into the room, only for a nurse to hold him back. “I’m sorry sir,” she shouted, matching Harrison’s wild strength with surprising tenacity. “Family only.”

 

“He’s my...he’s my…” somehow, the words stuck in Harrison’s mouth, cruelly choking his larynx. He turned around, pulling up the back of his tattered shirt to reveal the branching lines splayed across his back. 

 

“Oh,” the nurse said softly. “Ok, you can see him.” Harrison rushed over to the bed, hands hovering over the man in front of him. His eyes were closed and there was an oxygen mask over his face, vitals beeping urgently. Moving aside the unconscious man’s hair slightly, Harrison looked at his face intently. Sure enough, over his left eyebrow was the small tan line that was mirrored on Harrison's own face. 

 

“What’s his name?” Harrison asked, barely audible over the cacophony of the hospital. 

 

“Uhh...Jason Garrick,” the nurse replied, glancing at the clipboard pinned to his bed. “First meeting, huh?”

 

“Yeah,” whispered Harrison, barely more than an exhale of breath. “Yeah.” His eyes swept through the hall, at the other patients of the disaster -  _ his _ disaster - lay in cots, surrounded by their loved ones. 

 

“You can stay,” the nurse said, jerking her head in the direction of a spare stool. “He’s stable, for now.”

 

Harrison nodded curtly, slumping into the stool. “Thanks,” he said, removing his glasses and running a hand over his face. The nurse left to check on her other patients, her tenacity starting to give way to exhaustion. Cautiously, Harrison reached out to touch Jason Garrick’s hand, which protruded from the foil blanket. As they made contact, a spark jumped between the two, and Harrison recoiled instinctively. He let out a short bark of laughter, rubbing his hand.

 

“Looks like what they say is true, eh Garrick?” He said dryly. “Sparks fly and all that.” Naturally, the other man didn’t respond. “Ah, well,” Harrison sighed. “We’ll see how long it takes you to wake up.” Leaning one elbow on the cot, Harrison adjusted his position slightly, and waited.


End file.
